BQE CORE vs. QuickBooks Online

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BQE CORE
Score 8.8 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
BQE CORE is a business management solution built specifically for professional service firms. BQE CORE is a combination of a billing assistant, project management, and accounting solution. CORE is designed to do the hard work of delivering actionable insights directly to the user's dashboards or inbox. BQE CORE replaces the products Engineeroffice, Archioffice, and BillQuick; the functionality of these applications is now found in BQE CORE.N/A
QuickBooks Online
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
QuickBooks Online is a SaaS version of the QuickBooks product. It contains all of the features found in the local version. Higher-priced plans include greater automation, payment management, inventory and time tracking, and analytics features.
$38
per month
Pricing
BQE COREQuickBooks Online
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Simple Start
$38
per month
Essentials
$75
per month
Plus
$115
per month
Advanced
$275
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BQE COREQuickBooks Online
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BQE COREQuickBooks Online
Considered Both Products
BQE CORE
Chose BQE CORE
We previously only used QBO for our ledger and reports, the invoicing features were not easy to use and there wasn't a project management aspect.
Chose BQE CORE
Still using QBO - integrated with BQE Core - may eventually cross over to everything being done on CORE. Integration is not the easiest.n I know there are billing programs that are set up to communicate back and forth with Quickbooks.
Chose BQE CORE
Both are good programs, but for us, BQE Core had the edge as we had already been using ArchiOffice, so we were already familiar with how the system worked and were able to transfer over old data.
Chose BQE CORE
Core is an all-inclusive package that produces results quickly. Easy to learn and a breeze to use. It even has the ability to interface with other software.
Chose BQE CORE
Although QB has a project component, it only provides basic cross-referencing and is not nearly as sophisticated in its ability to create relevant reports for use in identifying KPIs. It also does not have the ability to create phased project invoices without a manual entry …
Chose BQE CORE
We paid for BigTime and started to implement it so we could have one package with accounting as well. BQE Core didn't have the online payment selection and we had trouble years ago with integrating with QuickBooks. In trying to set up BigTime, the migration of previous and …
QuickBooks Online

No answer on this topic

Features
BQE COREQuickBooks Online
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
8.1
74 Ratings
5% above category average
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Task Management9.356 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management9.055 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts9.228 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling9.036 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation8.139 Ratings00 Ratings
Team Collaboration6.846 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology7.421 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology4.718 Ratings00 Ratings
Document Management8.739 Ratings00 Ratings
Email integration6.333 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access7.845 Ratings00 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking9.674 Ratings00 Ratings
Change request and Case Management8.332 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management9.058 Ratings00 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
8.6
56 Ratings
10% above category average
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Quotes/estimates8.329 Ratings00 Ratings
Invoicing8.949 Ratings00 Ratings
Project & financial reporting8.954 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with accounting software8.335 Ratings00 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
8.1
121 Ratings
7% above category average
Pay calculation00 Ratings8.4110 Ratings
Benefit plan administration00 Ratings7.260 Ratings
Direct deposit files00 Ratings8.5101 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management00 Ratings8.274 Ratings
Reimbursement management00 Ratings7.981 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
7.0
113 Ratings
8% below category average
API for custom integration00 Ratings7.094 Ratings
Plug-ins00 Ratings7.095 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
8.3
186 Ratings
1% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings8.5151 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.2176 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
8.2
212 Ratings
5% above category average
Dashboards00 Ratings8.2199 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings8.4206 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings7.9190 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
7.9
229 Ratings
4% above category average
Accounts payable00 Ratings8.7195 Ratings
Accounts receivable00 Ratings8.8212 Ratings
Cash management00 Ratings8.1194 Ratings
Bank reconciliation00 Ratings9.0218 Ratings
Expense management00 Ratings8.3202 Ratings
Time tracking00 Ratings7.095 Ratings
Fixed asset management00 Ratings8.094 Ratings
Multi-currency support00 Ratings7.548 Ratings
Multi-division support00 Ratings7.379 Ratings
Regulations compliance00 Ratings8.078 Ratings
Electronic tax filing00 Ratings8.1113 Ratings
Self-service portal00 Ratings7.4124 Ratings
Global Financial Support00 Ratings6.840 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers00 Ratings8.170 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting00 Ratings7.970 Ratings
Localizations00 Ratings7.954 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations00 Ratings8.5141 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting00 Ratings7.160 Ratings
Configurable Accounting00 Ratings7.986 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework00 Ratings7.757 Ratings
Standardized Processes00 Ratings8.8105 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
6.9
88 Ratings
6% below category average
Inventory tracking00 Ratings6.783 Ratings
Automatic reordering00 Ratings7.146 Ratings
Location management00 Ratings7.353 Ratings
Manufacturing module00 Ratings6.636 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
7.9
141 Ratings
6% above category average
Pricing00 Ratings8.090 Ratings
Order entry00 Ratings7.886 Ratings
Credit card processing00 Ratings8.4109 Ratings
Cost of goods sold00 Ratings8.3107 Ratings
Order Orchestration00 Ratings7.446 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility00 Ratings7.949 Ratings
Order exception Resolution00 Ratings7.542 Ratings
User Ratings
BQE COREQuickBooks Online
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(167 ratings)
8.3
(247 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(8 ratings)
9.5
(27 ratings)
Usability
9.4
(117 ratings)
8.4
(162 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(1 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(1 ratings)
1.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
7.4
(90 ratings)
9.9
(70 ratings)
Online Training
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
2.3
(6 ratings)
9.9
(7 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
4.5
(1 ratings)
1.3
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(1 ratings)
2.0
(3 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
5.0
(3 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
5.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
BQE COREQuickBooks Online
Likelihood to Recommend
BQE Software Inc.
I would recommend this for our industry: architecture, engineering, or construction. I would recommend this for any larger firm with many employees or high number of projects. I would particularly recommend this for a company with projects that have budget constraints and where time tracking and expense tracking is very important. I would not recommend this complicated software for a small firm with a small amount of income or number of projects.
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Intuit
QBO is a great solution for small and midsize companies. If the goal is to record all transactions and pull reliable financial reports, QBO is a great option. QBO is also a great solution if most operations are run in a system like Ramp. It syncs well with systems like that and turns the data into something management can use to make decisions. QBO is great because so many people use it. It is easy to find training online, and many people have experience with it.
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Pros
BQE Software Inc.
  • Invoice Collections within Billing is a great tool because of the ability to take notes and track contact.
  • Invoices are professional looking and easy for our clients to understand the overall progress within each phase of their project.
  • Dashboards are the best tool EVER!
  • The Contact List feature within Clients setup is the perfect way to track multiple project managers within a large company that also has multiple contracts with us.
Read full review
Intuit
  • Workflows for accounts payable invoice review are terrific.
  • Bill payment allows you to pay vendors online via ACH or check without having to write a physical check, which reduces admin time.
  • The cloud based login lends well to a remote or hybrid work environment for staff.
  • QuickBooks Online allows you to pre-configure vendors' general ledger expense accounts. This helps with general ledger coding accuracy and consistency.
  • QuickBooks Online integrates with Rippling HRIS, Coast, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, etc., which lends well to an efficient month-end closing and reduced administrative time.
Read full review
Cons
BQE Software Inc.
  • Customizable Reporting
  • Linking Project to Payment all together
  • Assigning contacts to particular roles - such as Invoicing, Contracts, etc.
  • Accounting Functionality - they are basically a project management accounting software, so in my opinion, they could learn some things from other accounting software such as QuickBooks etc.
Read full review
Intuit
  • I dislike that the online bill pay option through QuickBooks is required for their invoicing.
  • The auto-fill portion of the customer setup, specifically the company name, is listed, but it also auto-fills in the name portion, which is inconvenient and time-consuming to remove.
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Likelihood to Renew
BQE Software Inc.
We have been using Core for a few years now, and honestly started to look at other software systems to see what was out there. What we chose was a nightmare for migration so we never left Core. Now we have added invoicing and payments from Core instead of double entry with QBO. Still only a few cycles in but looks like it will be up to speed soon and working smoothly.
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Intuit
It like the product 'right out of the box' and I trust Intuit will continually improve it over the years based on my experience with their desktop products. The large providers of Apps makes customizing the entire package relatively easy and seamless for a wide variety of business types.
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Usability
BQE Software Inc.
The foundation is awesome, like I have said before, however the house being built on it, the educational resources being provided to us (more of sales pitches that don't work), and flexible workflow opportunities, is making us look elsewhere for how much we will be spending on per user. It's crazy to think how flexible they are not when it comes to user settings. Lack of integration with other sources is awful.
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Intuit
Beyond being overkill for a small org's needs, QBO is constantly stealing screen real estate and attention by hammering users for account upgrades, connecting to one of their approved consultants or buying add-ons. The idea of using a simple configurable bookeeping and light accounting interface is completely missing. At the very least, we should be able to hide functions like inventory that we will never use.
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Reliability and Availability
BQE Software Inc.
I can only remember a couple of times in 4 years that Core has been unavailable.
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Intuit
We have rarely had outages in the last 10 years. I can only recall 2 times in the last 10 years where we were not able to access our client files.
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Performance
BQE Software Inc.
This is one area that does need some improvement. It can be slow at time, so we had our IT look at it from our side and we had no issues, so it has to be some slowness on their side.
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Intuit
Everything process has its bugs lately with the new interface. Nothing has worked smoothly since this all began last month.
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Support Rating
BQE Software Inc.
As a new employee and CORE user, I talk to support on a weekly basis. I have never had to wait for more than 3 min to get connect with a support rep, and all my questions have been answered. The support representatives are polite and eager to help no matter how simple your question is.
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Intuit
In my experience, most representatives keep me on the phone for hours, literally, for a single issue and then usually cannot resolve it satisfactorily. I have 10 open cases that need resolution and, in my experience, there has been NO follow-up communication on any of them.
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Online Training
BQE Software Inc.
Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
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Intuit
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
BQE Software Inc.
It does take some time to understand the options and to find the best invoice template.
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Intuit
The person in charge of QB needs to be very accurate with record keeping and is recommended to stay on top of tasks. The biggest issue we have is reconciliation, and those issues occur only when too much time has occurred between reconciliations
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Alternatives Considered
BQE Software Inc.
Deltek Vision is far more advanced, more encompassing and offers more flexibility with what you want to do. However, it's also quite difficult to use, whereas BQE CORE is intuitive and user friendly. The trade off is worth it in some arenas but overall it's not suited for a larger fast paced company. Great for smaller companies.
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Intuit
As a freelance bookkeeper, the Desktop version of QuickBooks Online doesn't allow for ease of access from any device. Having to be on a computer with the software downloaded creates additional work to gain access to all required filings etc. Also, I personally find the linking functionality on the Online version to be much more streamlined and user friendly.
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Scalability
BQE Software Inc.
This software works on a small and large scale.
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Intuit
As we have grown along our professional path, we have also expanded our use of QB. The scalability is easy and features seem to be waiting for you until you need them. We have increased profits by over 10x from our first year in business to the current and have yet to find a reason to look elsewhere
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Return on Investment
BQE Software Inc.
  • Quick setup of new tasks under a parent project, with immediate hourly billing to it.
  • Monitoring of details of non-chargeable efforts in appropriate detail
  • Validation of hourly cost, billing cost, benefit cost, profitability by person and role
  • Company tracking of write-off's included in corporate and project reporting, no data is "lost"
  • Can track excessive work time as +PTO in lieu of pay for use as future vacation
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Intuit
  • QuickBooks has given us a useful portal by which to get an overview of our financials.
  • QuickBooks has given us a relatively easy way to send out invoices quickly and efficiently.
  • Due to the customization limitations on QuickBooks, we've had to get creative in third-party implementations to better represent our brand and to track financials.
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ScreenShots

BQE CORE Screenshots

Screenshot of Core powered by BQE SoftwareScreenshot of BQE CORE Project Dashboard ViewScreenshot of BQE CORE 360* Firm Performance ViewScreenshot of BQE CORE Reporting & AnalyticsScreenshot of BQE CORE Project Time EntryScreenshot of BQE CORE Project Expense Tracking

QuickBooks Online Screenshots

Screenshot of the accounting and bank transactions interfaceScreenshot of an overview of the accounting inventoryScreenshot of book marksScreenshot of the business tax overviewScreenshot of the customer hubScreenshot of the dashboard